Poornima Manco

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Failing forward

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We all know what kind of year it’s been. And I will not use it as an excuse, but I will admit that I have failed rather spectacularly at what I had so ambitiously vowed to do at the start of 2020. For those who’ve come to my blog a little later, here’s the link to my very public proclamation – New Year, New you & all that jazz.

Now, I had said that shopping has always been for fun and for fashion (for me), but this year it became my bit of frivolity too. When, with each passing day, all one read or heard was doom and gloom, I cheered myself up by buying a dress (or two), several lipsticks, some gorgeous shoes, and well… you get the idea!

In my defence, none of this is throwaway fashion. I made all these purchases intending to keep and wear these items for several years. Also, when I dispose of them in the future, it will be to a charity shop and not a landfill. However, even while I write this, I feel a twinge of guilt, because I had absolutely no need for any of these things I purchased over the year. I have a full to bursting wardrobe, outfits that range three sizes (for my fit to fat phases) and enough makeup to do over the entire cast of ‘Phantom of the opera’. Still, a girl with a credit card, an Instagram account and a desire to make herself feel better through any means possible, can end up doing a fair bit of damage to said card. I won’t even go into the psychology of what shopping came to embody in the year that never was. This was the chicken soup for my soul. Shallow, I know, but true.

So, as we near the end of this particularly horrendous year, I stand before you, a bit shame-faced, and quite rueful in not having followed through on my promise. However, with just a few days to go, I don’t see any reason to not want to try again. At some level I recognise that shopping is only papering over the cracks of anxiety, uncertainty and fear. It’s momentary joy in an unpredictable time. It’s comfort consumption, a crutch to handle that which there is no handle on. And each of us is ‘dealing with’ in our own unique ways. But equally, my original intent of doing something for the planet hasn’t disappeared entirely. I am still very cognisant of the fact that pandemics aside, our planet is groaning under the weight of our consumerism. And while I may have stumbled and fallen at the very first hurdle, I can still pick myself up and finish this race. With three days to go to 2021, now may be as good a time as any.

After all, in the immortal words of Scarlett O’Hara, “Tomorrow is another day.”

 

The trouble with Brexit (Part 4) – Project Fear: EU Immigration

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As a Dutch person, there is one particular issue about the UK that has had me puzzled for years: Why on earth does the UK, a country that is so obsessed with immigration, not have a national registration system for its citizens?

When our children were younger, my husband and I used to have au pairs living with us at our flat in London. Most of those au pairs were Dutch, and as soon as they arrived, they would usually ask us where they were supposed to register their arrival. “You are not required to get registered anywhere”, I used to reply. “So how will the authorities know where I am?”, they asked. “Well, don’t take it personally, but they’re really not interested! If you were to stay here, and get a proper job at some point in the future, you would need to get a National Insurance number and register with HMRC to pay your taxes. But right now, you don’t have to go to town hall and tell someone where you live, like you do at home. I have been here since 17th September 1990, but that arrival date isn’t registered anywhere in the UK.“

The reason why all of us cloggies were so surprised was because we were used to doing things very differently at home. In The Netherlands, there is one big citizen’s database, which covers the entire population of about 17 million people. No real distinction is being made between people who were born in Holland, or those who moved there later: everyone is required to be registered at their home address. When you move house, even if it’s just down the road, you must inform the authorities.

Everybody also has their own Burger Service Nummer, or BSN (citizen’s service number). You need this for everything to do with your administration, and you will get asked for it on a regular basis. You want to open a bank account, or get health insurance? Not without your BSN. Receive your salary? Apply for benefits? Make a hospital appointment? You and your BSN are inextricably linked.

In contrast, the British system has never been as rigorous. There are some registration structures in place, of course, like the electoral roll, HMRC, or GP patient lists, but there is no Dutch-style umbrella government database that covers everything and everybody comprehensively.  Do you remember Grenfell Tower? Nobody knew exactly how many people lived there when the fire broke out. In fact, ten people managed to convince the authorities that they were Grenfell residents when they weren’t, and received financial assistance that they were not entitled to, because there was no registration system.

So yes, the Dutch way of doing things may be a bit much for anyone who is concerned about privacy and personal liberties. And to be fair, it is a bit like a mix of George Orwell’s 1984 and the 1960’s tv series The Prisoner: Big Brother is watching you, and you are most definitely a number. But at least the authorities know who lives where, how long they’ve been there, and who is entitled to healthcare coverage or unemployment benefits.

Is it the EU’s fault that the UK doesn’t have a citizen’s registration system? Of course not. The UK is a sovereign country, that has made its own decisions. Do other EU countries have it? Yes, many of them do. The UK has just chosen not to.

So if there is no real system that tells you who has moved in and out of the country, how does the UK actually measure immigration? Well, you know those nice ladies who sometimes jump in front of you at airports, wanting to ask you a few questions? Believe it or not, but the UK’s immigration count is for about 90% based on those questions, that culminate in the so-called International Passenger Survey (IPS). The IPS operates at 19 airports, 8 ports and the Channel Tunnel rail link, and a sample of passengers get asked where they’re from, why they’re in the UK and how long they are planning to stay. That data is then combined with numbers from the Home Office, the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), and the UK census (which is carried out every 10 years). Based on all of that, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) publishes a migration update every three months.

As you can imagine, those final figures are more an educated guess than an exact science, but there are a few things that we can deduct from them. One of them is that immigration from non-EU countries, which has nothing to do with Brexit for obvious reasons, has been consistently higher than EU immigration for decades: at the moment, net figures hover around 261,000 a year. And the UK has always had full control over immigration from non-EU countries, of course.

Talking about non-EU countries, whatever happened to Turkey? During the referendum, big Vote Leave posters shown all over the country informed us that “Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU”. Surely that must be imminent by now?

No, it isn’t, because it wasn’t true. Turkey applied to join as far back as 1987 (32 years ago), and in all that time has only managed to get through 1 out of the 35 chapters that it needs to complete in order to join. Negotiations have completely stalled in recent years due to Turkey’s human rights violations, so it really doesn’t look like the country will be eligible anytime soon. And even if Turkey ever does manage to complete the other 34 chapters through some kind of miracle, then every single EU country, including the UK, can use its veto to block accession. So let’s not mince words: the language on the poster was a blatant lie.

Surely the Leave campaign must have known this? So why did it choose to mislead the public like that? Well, it’s probably for the same reason why Nigel Farage’s Ukip produced that famous Breaking Point poster: because the fear factor is such an effective and persuasive tool. Remember that this was 2016, when both Isis and president Assad were committing terrible atrocities in Syria, and the refugee crisis was in full flow. Against a background of tabloid newspapers that had been fanning the flames of fear for years, many people were terrified of the two particular bogeymen du jour: muslim terrorists and refugees. And seeing as a combination of both was clearly about to infiltrate the UK, Trojan Horse-style, we needed a heroic act like Brexit to stop that from happening.

Never mind that the Breaking Point poster showed people who had nothing to do with Brexit, because they were from outside the EU (there was a sea of brown faces, when there is no EU country where most people have brown skin – was this a bit of a dog whistle to racists?). The people in the poster were obviously supposed to be Syrian refugees, and the implication was that the UK would be forced to take in scores of them by the EU. Never mind that the UK only engages selectively with EU rules on asylum and immigration, and is not even part of the second phase of the EU’s Common Asylum Policy. Never mind that even if someone is eventually granted refugee status in another EU country (a painstakingly long process) it takes years to get an EU passport so he or she can travel abroad – 7 years in Germany, for instance. Never mind that the UK isn’t part of the Schengen zone and has full control over its borders (apart from illegal immigration, but that’s already illegal, of course). And never mind the fact that there are about 1.8 billion muslims in the world, and none of us would be here if just one percent of them wanted to blow people up – so let’s keep a little perspective.

Never mind any of that: the simple Leave campaign messages about immigrants resonated with people, even when they made no sense at all, and even if immigration from EU and non-EU countries got completely mixed up in public discussions. Facts didn’t matter; feelings did. It was in this toxic climate of hatred and resentment towards foreigners that pro-migrant MP Jo Cox was murdered by far-right terrorist Thomas Mair, just hours after the Breaking Point poster was revealed.

So let’s now talk about the only type of migration that is relevant in the context of Brexit: migration from EU countries. Net migration from EU countries was around 57,000 in the year up to September 2018 – the lowest it has been in years, and down from 189,000 in the year before the referendum. How much control does the UK have over EU citizens coming into the UK, if any? To answer this question, we must again make a distinction between the free movement of people within the Schengen zone, and freedom of movement as part of the Single Market.

Last time, we found out that the UK and the Republic of Ireland have an opt-out from the Schengen zone, that there is a physical border, and that everybody coming into the UK or Ireland still has to go through passport control. The Schengen zone is therefore pretty much irrelevant in the UK’s Brexit debate, because the UK is not part of it.

What does matter, however, is the famous ‘freedom of movement’ principle. That does apply to the UK, because it is in the Single Market – and in order to enjoy the advantages of the Single Market countries have to adhere to the Four Freedoms:

  1. Freedom of goods
  2. Freedom of services
  3. Freedom of capital
  4. Freedom of movement.

It is this freedom of movement principle that became a big issue during the Brexit debate. For many people who voted for Brexit, it was a no-brainer: we can’t just let anybody come into the UK; there should be some kind of limit to it. Particularly when it comes to people from poorer EU countries, with lower wages and lower living standards, who may be entitled to claim benefits in the much richer UK. “Surely we are not being unreasonable if we don’t want to ‘sponsor’ EU immigrants who are going to sit on their backside and sponge off the state, while the rest of us have to work hard every day and pay our taxes?”, they reasoned. Sounds fair enough, right?

Actually, even though there is a perception in the UK that the EU has some kind of open door policy, freedom of movement is not an unconditional right at all. Article 7 of the EU Citizen’s Rights Directive states that after three months, if you’re an EU citizen who moves to another EU country, you must:

  • have a job or be self-employed, earning money and paying taxes (in other words: you are economically active); or
  • have ‘sufficient resources’ in order not to become a ‘burden on the social assistance system of the host country’, and have comprehensive sickness insurance (in other words: you are financially independent).

That’s it. Either you work (or you’re in education), or you’re so rich already that you don’t need to work. In addition to that, immigrants can also be sent back for reasons like public policy, public security and public health, and David Cameron’s February 2016 EU deal gave the UK stronger powers to deport EU criminals.

This is where the UK’s, shall we say, rather lax administration system comes in. Because how can you send people back, if you don’t know who has come in, and where they live? EU citizens who moved to the UK have never been obliged to register at their local municipality, and once they arrive in the country, the authorities don’t really keep tabs on most of them. As long as they keep a low profile, it is pretty easy to get lost in a big city like London.

Sensible restrictions on the freedom of movement principle have always been available under EU law, but successive UK governments have never bothered enforcing them. They have never insisted that EU immigrants had to have a job, or be wealthy enough to support themselves. They have never demanded that they have comprehensive sickness insurance. And they never deported anyone who wasn’t economically active or financially independent after 3 months – possibly because they wouldn’t know how or where to find them!

It’s a similar story regarding the so-called A8 countries: 8 Eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004. It would have been perfectly possible for the UK to impose temporary labour market restrictions on workers from these countries under EU law. However, the UK, Ireland and Sweden decided not to. This meant that there was a sudden surge of Eastern European immigrants, who often settled in rural areas in which immigration was uncommon.

My mum and dad always used to say: “Everything that has too in front of it is not good: too much, too little, too excessive etc.” Everything in moderation, in other words. The arrival of large numbers of migrants 10-15 years ago (too many, too sudden, some would argue) did put an extra strain on schools, housing and GP surgeries in certain parts of the country. This often happened in areas that successive governments had already underinvested in for years. But is worth remembering that the vast majority of those migrants are law-abiding citizens who work, pay their taxes and therefore pay their own way (and the ones who don’t shouldn’t have been allowed to stay after 3 months according to EU rules, remember?). What would really help poorer areas in the UK is not so much getting rid of the foreigners (or the EU, which has invested very heavily in those areas), but some proper government funding for local services, particularly in those areas that have been left behind for decades.

Another common argument is that some (mainly Eastern European) communities should integrate a bit better into British society. That may be true to a degree, but it is a lot harder to integrate when you’re constantly being met with hostility, the locals don’t talk to you and you don’t feel welcome. And isn’t it funny how some of the same people who have a problem with Polish shops love going to the Dog & Duck and that little expat shop that sells hobnobs when they are in Benidorm?

Listen to what Conservative Lord Michael Heseltine has to say about immigration and freedom of movement, and about someone who was Home Secretary for 6 years between 2010-2016. Someone whose name will always be associated with Brexit, but also with expressions like ‘hostile environment’, ‘queue jumpers’, ‘Windrush scandal’, ‘go home vans’ and ’citizens of nowhere’: Theresa May.

“The interesting thing in the European context is that now the overseas immigration from outside Europe is in a different league or scale to those from Europe. And that was the case whilst Theresa May was home secretary for all those years. Why did she do nothing about it, if this was the burning issue? And the reason why I think she didn’t do anything is because our social services depend upon the skills of the doctors and the nurses in the health service that have come from outside that actually make immigration a very important strength to our economy. And the government didn’t want to be put in a position where it is obviously controlling these numbers, creating shortages, lengthening the queues, in a way that would have happened if immigration had been controlled in the way they wanted it to be.” 

Lord Heseltine is absolutely right: immigrants are indeed a ‘very important strength to our economy’, particularly to the NHS. The UK is lucky enough to have an extremely low unemployment rate, which together with an ageing population means that there are shortages in certain sectors of the economy that immigrants – both skilled and unskilled – help fill. 9.5% of doctors are EU nationals, for instance (23% of doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital even), as well as 16% of dentists and 6.4% of nurses and midwives. From care workers to seasonal farm labourers, teachers to abattoir vets, surgeons to chambermaids, EU citizens have been a vital part of the UK economy for years.

And not only do most of those EU immigrants work (83% of those of working age, compared to 76% of UK nationals), there is overwhelming evidence that they actually boost public finances rather than costing the UK money. That is because they contribute more in taxes, and make much less use of benefits and public services than the average British person. And yes, this includes people from those so-called A8 countries I mentioned earlier. Immigrants from these countries often do low-paid work that local British people don’t want to do, such as fruit picking, factory work or cleaning. But their high employment rates and hard work offset the fact that they usually get paid less than either UK citizens or immigrants from the older EU countries, meaning that they still contribute more than they take out.

A major study on the impact of 20 years of immigration (up to 2015) by the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance concluded  that “EU immigrants pay more in taxes than they use public services, and therefore help to reduce the budget deficit. Immigrants do not have a negative effect on local services such as education, health or social housing.” The report found that rather than being the fault of immigrants, these problems were the result of the 2008 cash and the slow economic recovery. Another huge study found that European migrants made a positive net contribution of £22 billion to UK public finances between 2000-2011. A research paper published by University College London states that immigrants from the European Economic Area (EEA) paid 34% more in tax than they took out, whereas UK-born citizens paid for only 89% of the benefits and services they received through taxes, costing the state £624 billion between 2001 and 2011.

In other words: EU immigrants actually sponsor British society, not the other way round.

The reason for this is that they are much more likely to be of working age than the general population. Think about it: until we are, say, around 20 years old, we cost society money, in childcare and education costs. We then start working, hopefully for several decades, and instead of taking, we start contributing to the public coffers instead. Our income taxes pay for schools and hospitals, teachers’ salaries and the police. At the end of our lives, when we need more medical attention and draw our pensions, we become expensive again.

Likewise, your typical Polish builder arrives in the UK fully educated and immunised, so the expensive early part of his life has been paid for by his home country. He works and pays his taxes to his host country during the long productive years of his life, so the UK benefits from him and gets pretty good value for money. And quite often, he retires ‘back home’ before he needs a care home or a hip operation.

The UK needs immigrants to fill jobs. Some people seem to fantasise that British workers will replace them all after Brexit, but evidence suggests otherwise. Many EU citizens have already left the UK in recent years, and this has not lead to a sudden uptake of jobs by British workers, but to fruit rotting in the fields, and to 100,000 vacancies in the NHS. Some of those vacancies are having to be filled by temporary staff, which costs the NHS more money, and it is likely that EU workers will simply be replaced by non-EU workers. Will the NHS really be any better off when your doctor comes from Argentina instead of Spain, or from China instead of Malta?

So how do those 3.6 million EU citizens in the UK, and the 1.3 million British citizens in the EU-27 countries feel about Brexit? A total of nearly 5 million people, most of whom didn’t even get a vote over their own future during the referendum? Well, some of their testimonies have been documented in two poignant books called “In Limbo” and “In Limbo Too”. This is how one Italian lady in the UK expresses herself:

“One morning, after years and even decades, you suddenly feel unwelcome, unwanted, betrayed. Your certainties, your life and your security are gone. Through no fault of your own you are stuck in a painful limbo.” (Elena Remigi)

Sadly, it sums up how a lot of people feel. For years, many decent EU citizens have been portrayed as freeloaders and parasites by the Leave campaign and the British press, even when the opposite was true. Some have even been mixed up with terrorists or refugees in the public mind. Foreign simply equalled bad. It is one thing to be under appreciated, but it is quite another thing when your presence in the country is the second biggest reason why people all around you voted to leave the EU.

We are not just talking about anonymous immigrants here. These EU citizens are our neighbours, friends and colleagues, who have jobs, spouses, children and social lives in the UK. It’s the lady who looks after your parents in their care home, the guy who fixed your roof, your Amazon delivery driver. People who contribute to society, both in taxes and in services, and have often done so for many years. They exercised their right to move to another country in good faith, and have now found that the rules have suddenly changed. Some are not even sure if they will be entitled to Settled Status (a brand new registration system that only applies to EU citizens) because they may have taken a career break to look after children or a sick relative, and now the government suddenly and retroactively demands to see proof of comprehensive health insurance – something it never mentioned before.

And freedom of movement works both ways, of course: Brexit also takes away the rights of British citizens themselves to live, work, study or retire in any of the other 27 EU countries. Something that a lot of voters, particularly older people, may not have taken into consideration in 2016. It means that their own children and grandchildren will now be denied the chance to enjoy any of the benefits of the freedom of movement that they themselves had access to, like living in Prague for a year, or studying in Sweden under the EU’s Erasmus programme. The British people essentially voted to lose their own rights in this respect, because they will be stripped of their EU citizenship.

For years, successive governments have only been too happy to join in the populist blame game against immigrants. Nobody has been brave enough to go against the grain and articulate the benefits of immigration and the work that EU citizens do, or the advantages of free movement for UK citizens. Perhaps it suited them when the victims of austerity and government policies blamed the foreigners lower down the social ladder for their plight, rather than the politicians making the decisions higher up the ladder. Is it any wonder that in this hostile environment, there has been a rise in hate crimes against EU citizens, and against all immigrants in general?

In a sensible Brexit deal, there will be some kind of safety net, and the rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU-27 countries will most likely be protected. But the UK has deliberately left the option of a No Deal on the table during the past few years, meaning that those rights are in no way guaranteed. This is what has led to 3 years of uncertainty and anxiety. Not only do 5 million people still not know exactly what their residency rights will be after Brexit (and thankfully, most EU countries have been very generous in this respect), they also don’t know if they will be able to keep any of the associated rights regarding employment, frontier work, education, health and social care, pensions and voting rights. 5 million human beings without a voice or vote, who didn’t deserve to be used as bargaining chips in some cynical political game. But sadly, that is exactly what has happened to them.

Next time, let’s examine the number one reason why people voted for Brexit: sovereignty.

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Johanna Brunt was born and raised in The Netherlands. She has spent half her life there on the continent, and half her life in the UK. After studying English and European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, she moved to London where she started working for an international airline. She is married to a Brit, and they have three children together.

All routes (should) lead to love

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What an incredible weekend I have just had! My first ever Pride parade and attendance at the Attitude Pride awards. It has been illuminating, educational, poignant and exhilarating.

My first contact with a gay person was at the age of twenty. Trinny was charming, funny and ever so handsome. He was also clearly not interested in women. Having just finished an English literature degree, I had a hazy sense of what homosexuality meant because of the multiple references in the various texts I had studied, but this was the first time I was encountering a homosexual in person. Luckily, having been brought up in a very liberal environment in India, this did not faze me in the slightest. Trinny and I struck up an instant friendship. He brought to the table something my other straight male friends never had – an irreverence, a crazy sense of humour and a complete lack of toxic masculinity. Of course, at the time I wouldn’t have been able to describe it in those terms. All I knew was that I felt completely safe with him and we had a blast together.

Time, circumstances and life moved us apart, but I never forgot my first encounter with a gay person. This was to colour all my future interactions. There was always an immediate sense of kinship and safety, and I relished the cutting sense of humour I inevitably came across. Over the years, I have had many, many gay friends and I consider myself privileged that they have embraced me and accepted me into their fold.

Therefore, it is heart rending to note that even today, in so many parts of the world, they are not accepted. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender are just labels. We are all living, breathing human beings underneath all of that. Yet, they are discriminated against, criminalised and marginalised in so many ways, big and small.

At the Attitude Pride awards, each of the winners had intensely moving stories to tell. From losing a lesbian partner to a stray bullet, to being sexually attacked as a man by another man, to having to suffer abuse while playacting as a woman in a gay marriage, to fighting to decriminalise an archaic law against homosexuality in India, each story was powerful and disturbing. Yet, in hugely difficult circumstances, they had overcome all sorts of obstacles and in proudly accepting who they were and what they stood for, forced the world, to not just recognise, but also to reward them for their efforts. I was alternately moved to tears, while cheering them on from the sidelines.

We are who we are. None of us choose our sexuality. It is built into our DNA. So why do we view with contempt those that are different from us? Look at the multiple colours that Nature grants to the world. Doesn’t that make for an exciting and varied life experience for all of us? Imagine if every landscape was the same, if there were only two colours to choose from and if everyday was a repeat of the one before? Wouldn’t we just die of boredom?

The LGBT people amongst us are all the colours of the rainbow. They are what add spice and flavour and beauty to our lives. They are, in their differences, in their multiplicities, in their abundance and profusion, as unique and talented and incredible as any of us.

50 years ago, the Stonewall riots, started a movement, which allowed the LGBT community to fight for their rights and let their true colours fly proudly. 50 years on, the Pride parade is a celebration of all people: it’s about diversity, inclusion, acceptance and most importantly, about love.

Even as I sprinted through the various groups marching in the parade, trying to catch up with my own group, I was struck by how much happiness and love there was in the onlookers and the procession. Everybody who was there wanted to be there. This wasn’t just people wanting to watch a spectacle, this was about people wanting to be a part of history. In supporting the LGBT community, we are paving the way to erode all kinds of discrimination, whether that is on the basis of sexuality, colour, caste or creed.

50 years from now, let us hope that humanity will understand and accept that differences are important. They allow growth, change and progress. In learning to love another, despite all perceived disparities and diversities, we ultimately learn to love ourselves. All routes, must and should, lead to love. ❤️

 

 

My Cup Runneth Over…

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I started my Guest Blog month in the hope that at least 50% of the people I had contacted for articles (people whose thoughts, lives and words I admired) would get back to me with some material. In actual fact, nearly 80% did! Yes I did pester and harangue them quite a bit (SORRY!) but my goodness, the response! I am humbled, grateful and overwhelmed beyond description.

My month overran, once again, like last time. But I didn’t mind and nor did my readers. It’s refreshing to come to a blog and read something new and unexpected. And boy, were the articles different and the topics varied!

André chronicled his unusual life and path in My unlikely journey to fatherhood. It was honest, heartfelt and emotionally uplifting. The response to his article was phenomenal. People reached out to tell him (and me) how much they admired him for his choices. His love for his children and their mothers shone like a beacon, and I hope it allowed other seemingly unlikely candidates to believe that they too can be mothers and fathers. After all, families come in all shapes and guises. It is love that holds them together.

The ghost in the office was Shantanu’s retelling of a mysterious series of events that occurred in one of his early offices. Does the supernatural exist? For a practical and rational person like Shantanu, nothing can explain away the incident he mentions. Spooky and eerie, sometimes there are things that are beyond the realm of our understanding, and maybe it’s best to leave them as is. What did you make of it?

Diya had a cushy existence till she decided to take the plunge and start teaching a group of underprivileged children in My rendezvous with God’s angels. What she found there was more rewarding than she could have ever expected. Their innocence, their eagerness to learn, their love for their teacher transformed her life. She learned to let go of the petty annoyances that plagued her, and immerse herself in giving back. To this day, it enriches her life in ways big and small.

Making mosaics became more than a hobby for Jyoti. It was an unconventional choice of craft and she encountered more than her fair share of problems, from the paucity of tools to the reluctance of other practitioners to share their skills. As a result, she started her own blog with the aim of helping other beginners and amateurs to source materials, tools and provide guidance in the process as well. Not only does she create the most beautiful mosaics, but also believes in the adage – ‘Gaining knowledge, is the first step to wisdom. Sharing it, is the first step to humanity.’ In Why do I make mosaics? Jyoti’s passion, humanity and humility shine through. She is an incredibly inspirational lady.

The Call of a Siren was an article sent to me by someone who wished to remain anonymous. If you’ve read the article, you will know why. The beauty of it is that this man has turned his life around from that lapse of judgement he details, and today he is an incredibly successful entrepreneur. He is also an avid reader and dabbles in the occasional bit of writing. It was my exhorting him to put pen to paper that created this thrilling recounting of an incident from his 20’s. I’m sure you’d agree that it reads like an episode from an exciting television series. My own heart was thumping as I read it for the first time! My friend, if you’re reading this, write more. You do have a gift.

HeartonWheels is Jeanne’s raison d’etre. She spends half her life in these refugee camps in Greece helping children overcome the trauma of escaping from war torn countries and being separated from their families. In extremely difficult conditions, she tries to fill their lives with laughter and with joy. This is not just a part time job for her, it is a calling. She is invested physically, mentally and emotionally in the well being of her charges. Her dream is to provide free education to all children in such conditions and through her mobile bus, which she is raising funds for, she hopes to realise this dream. Do have a read and contribute to her justgiving page if you can.

To say that Mohana has had an interesting life would be an understatement. A straight A student, who, for many years let her academic qualifications dictate the course of her life, then suddenly, on what seemed like a whim, let her art and talent take her on an entirely different journey. Yet, in her article, Life’s Nudges to Eke an Untrodden Path, Mohana explains how the seeds of this journey had been planted many years ago. The daughter of a renowned dancer, Mohana herself was an exceptionally talented danseuse. But it took many years, and many tiny hints from the Universe for her to realise where her true path lay. Unapologetically spiritual, she incorporates elements of her faith in her dance. There is an unalloyed joy that she transmits to her students through her teaching, that elevates her dance from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Bharat is a writer I admire immensely. His grasp on the English language is breathtaking. He can bend, twist, transmogrify and transmute words into astonishing combinations of sentences, transporting the reader into worlds where these words dance and twirl around one like whirling dervishes. A man whose imagination is so fertile, so fecund that he can trot out poem after poem without breaking a sweat. Yet, a self confessed procrastinator, it took me close to a year to get him to write about his Vipassana experience. For a man of words, how strange it must have been to have none for ten days. A retreat that is a true test of one’s mettle, but also a retreat that helps one to delve deeper into the self. Bharat’s take on it is part humorous, but there is an underlying awe and a deep love and respect for humanity that comes through. A tale of two beards is more than just about beards, it is about man’s search for meaning and silence in a world that grows louder and more chaotic each day.

Finally, the poignant and heart wrenching The Bus Stop was Joan’s tribute to her mother who suffered from Alzheimers for several years before succumbing to it. Disease of any kind strips the body of its well being and dignity, but Alzheimers strips the mind of everything. To not know oneself, one’s own life forgotten, one’s family becoming strangers, must be a horribly scary and isolating experience. Joan’s poem gives words to the wordless. It is an insight into a lost and wandering mind, trying to find its bearings, trying to grasp fruitlessly at memories that are slipping away. ‘Am I a lost article?’ is what her mother asked her once. Maybe we all are, lost in one way or another. But to be lost to oneself… what could be worse than that?

My Guest Blog month hasn’t quite ended. A colleague, the extremely intelligent, erudite, politically astute, deep thinking Joke Brunt is working on a series of articles on Brexit for me. The month of May will be devoted to her take on what Brexit stands for, and what the ramifications will be, to those of us on both sides of the fence. Do keep reading, keep commenting and stay engaged!

A very BIG thank you to all of my contributors once again.

#MeToo and why this hashtag matters

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Year 2017 saw the birth of a new movement called #MeToo. Right on the heels of the sexual misconduct charges against Weinstein, a feeling of kinship and a need to tell their own stories led to the emergence of this hashtag. #MeToo spoke for women who had buried, suppressed, hidden and suffered their own indignities at the hands of men over the years. A sisterhood that had been bound in chains of silence because of the shame associated with their experiences or the powers that muffled their voices. Not any more.

As #MeToo gained momentum, more stories emerged. Stories of workplace sexual harassment. Stories of sexual assault on women too young to fight back, too scared to speak up, too powerless to defend themselves. Stories of careers sabotaged of those who refused to succumb. From celebrity origins it spread like wildfire with the quotidian accounts of the everywoman. It made news because it shone a light on a disease that a largely patriarchal society had accepted and condoned. ‘Boys will be boys’ no longer washed, and women were fighting their corner with every ounce of outrage they possessed. Hashtag after hashtag proclaimed ‘Me too’. Some simply whispered it, while others detailed the hows, the whens and the ignominy of their experiences being repeatedly ignored.

From someone who has suffered sexual harassment at the hands of men starting from the tender age of eight, I added my voice to the hashtag. It has been many years since the last incident occurred, but I cannot forget the feelings of shame, helplessness and disgust that I felt back then. Why did it stop? Because I moved continents, and started a career path that had women on an equal platform as men. Yet those early incidents left an indelible mark on my psyche.

Being propositioned by a roadside hawker when I was young enough to be his grand daughter. A passerby stopping his vehicle and exposing his genitals as I walked home from school. Being groped in a temple by a stranger. Heavy breathing and threats of rape over the phone by a male classmate. A forty year old friend of my father asking an eighteen year old me to call him directly on his ‘bedroom line’. A superior at work taking advantage of my naiveté and planting an uncalled for kiss on me. Incident after incident that left me feeling violated in a billion different ways.

Each time I wondered why? Had I done something to lead them on? Had I dressed provocatively? Did I come across as sexually uninhibited? Little did I know back then, that women the world over were facing these humiliations and asking themselves the same questions.

Sexual assault or sexual harassment has very little to do with sexual gratification. It is power play, pure and simple. Men, whether they are superior in rank, age, strength or because society deems it so, wield that power over women in every arena, including the sexual one. Not all men, but I’ll come to that later. If a sexual encounter is to be a pleasurable one, it needs to be consensual. Yet consent is something that these men trample all over. They get their kicks through the fear and vulnerability of their victims.

How does one fight back? After all, not only is sexism institutionalised, it is practically an institution in itself. If #MeToo is anything to go by, then joining hands, exposing the perpetrators and standing up for what is right, can be a start. Easier said than done however. Education is the foundation of everything. Education that begins at home and is carried on throughout life. Education that portrays women as equals not to be preyed upon or ill used. Education that is subliminal, ideological, conscious and subconscious. Education in the messages that are given and received from various platforms, be it entertainment or media. Education that emphasises that women aren’t just baby machines or primary caregivers, Madonnas or whores. Education.

Criticisms of #MeToo have been that its ubiquity diluted its message, or that the LGBTQ communities found little or no representation, or that minor misdemeanours were categorised alongside major assaults, and that all men were tarred with the same brush. While there is merit in these accusations, it is important to recognise the spirit behind the movement. For the first time, in a long time, perhaps even since the Suffragette movement of the 1900’s or the feminist movement hitting its stride in 1960’s, were women banding together and calling attention to their respective stories. Change has to begin somewhere and in 2017, it began with one woman saying to another, “Me too”.

Nearing the end of the second decade of the 21st century, one can only hope that more voices chime in to stamp out behaviour that is absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable. Men, good men, who were equally horrified to see the extent of the problem, become a part of the solution. Shut down the locker room talk, stop viewing the female sex as commodities, take responsibility for your actions, and speak up when you see an injustice. Not too much to ask for.

As a mother to two teenage girls, I hope I have planted the seeds of self worth and self respect in them. They have watched the dynamic between my husband and I all their lives. Our roles have been fluid, flexible even, with each of us happy to take on traditional and non traditional parts. We are equals, we are partners and we are immensely lucky to think the same way about gender and equality. Moving forward, I hope my girls and countless others step into a world that is less skewed in favour of men. I hope they never have to encounter abuse or power play, and if they do, they are equipped to fight back and stand their ground.

#MeToo may not be a perfect movement, but it is an important one. By highlighting the extent of the problem, it has called attention to the behaviours that support and perpetrate abuse of power. Important people have lost their jobs and livelihoods because zero tolerance has kicked in. Companies are recognising that this sort of behaviour is unsupportable. Individuals who thought they were above the law, are finding themselves out in the cold.

Just as we take our voting rights or birth control rights for granted today, I hope a day in the not-too-distant future, will see us take our safety in the workplace, our rights over our bodies and swift and immediate punishment for anyone who violates us, for granted as well. Then and only then, can #MeToo die a quiet, acceptable death.

Until then, keep chiming in, keep telling your stories, keep supporting one another. For in numbers lies our strength, and in unity lies our success.

For those who are willing to go a step further to ensure that all voices are heard and there is accountability for all perpetrators, read and contribute to the #TIMESUP movement:

www.timesupnow.com

In solidarity and with respect, #MeToo.